Survival Instincs
by SnazzyMeatball
Summary: Having a plane hijacked by cultist doesn't usually lead to waking up near a forest, let alone in another world. AKA – Surviving with a Swiss knife, a Lighter, an empty parachute bag and some goddamned good Instincts. (Realistic Modern-girl-in-LOTR Challenge)


**WARNINGS:** Gore, mature language, mature themes, violence, and questionable mortality.

**DISCLAIMER:** LOTR doesn't belong to me, its Tolkien's sandbox that I'm playing in. The OC's, the plot, and any other original idea or work mentioned in here, however, _does_ belong to me. Mentions of modern references belong to their respective creators. This fanfic, does belong to me, however. It's been posted on ffnet and AO#, and it _will stay posted only on those sites_. I see this on any other site, and believe me, I will sue your ass.

**A/N**: This is my spin on a LOTR, 'Modern girl into M.E.' fan fictions. I blame the plot bunnies - damned those annoying, persistent little devil incarnates. So here comes a probably, 15-20 chapters long, survival-adventure, fictional-horror fanfic which dabbles a lot with questionable mortality, gore – like _gore_ gore and a hell lot of frustration.

**POINTS TO KNOW:**

1] This is _not_ a **romance** story, there is not going to be romance, (Maybe in second act) this is mainly going to focus on adventure and survival genre. If, and _if _there is romance – it's going to be a **slow** burn.

2] **WESTRON IS ****_NOT_****ENGLISH. ** Our OC is going to face her journey with no knowledge of the common tongue – basically she is in a very tight spot. (I said Realistic, so it's going to be realistic as shit.) She, of course, will _eventually_ learn Westron, but that's eventually.

3] Loose any and all hope of reading/seeing any major character. No major characters like –Elrond, Boromir, Legolas, Elland, Elohir, Gimili, the hobbits and Gandalf. You will maybe see them in the future, but that's after her getting used to her life.

4] NO TENTH WALKER. NO LEGOMANCE. NO SERVENT OF VALAR-INTERN OF GANDALF, AND _**DEFINETLY NO LOTHIEN'S BETTER LOOKING TWIN SISTER SHITE**_, thank you very much.

After, extensive search, on middle earth, along with its topography, climate and overall geography, I have finally made a path which the OC will follow. It will be shown later, in the chapters. Although, there are something's that I have completely pulled out of my ass, so I would say that this a healthy mixture of realism and fantasy. Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts on the story.

Survival instincts

Having a plane hijacked by cultist doesn't usually lead to waking up near a forest, let alone in another world. AKA – Surviving with a Swiss knife, a Lighter, an empty parachute bag and some goddamned good Instincts. (Realistic Modern-girl-in-LOTR Challenge)

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**"**_We don't develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity._**"**

_Barbara de Angelis._

It was Saturday, September 22nd - a beautiful, if rather cloudy morning. Passengers from United Kingdom boarded a plane to Australia. Happy families, single adventurers, students and many other chattered and relaxed into their seats, unknowing of the path ahead. It was a direct flight, which was why many were confused when they landed somewhere near Los Angeles.

Ten got up from their seats, and ten entered the plane, as the flight took off once again. Metal teeth glinted almost as ominously as the flight attender's gun. "Five years." She crooned. "An' finally, we succeed!" The passengers quieted down as the situation sank in. A red faced man, about twenty minutes later, refused to be handed a cultist 'sacrificial lamb' token – a small metal coin with a pentagram in it.

"I _refuse_ to just sit here and-"

Blood and brain-chunks splattered on the walls of Airplane 21-K, the pristine metal left in a gory mess. Silence hung heavy in the flight, the chalky faces of masses staring silently at the mangled body. No one said a word, as a heavy-settled man gingerly swiped at the scratch marks across his face.

"Anyone else trynna play hero?" He rasped, licking the blood of his fingers. "Heroine?" he gazed into the lobby, face a blank mask. "Because I'm cool about blowing your brains out like McFatass here." Silence greeted the man's question, as a woman somewhere in the back choked her sobs. "Nobody?" His dark eyes were malevolent. "Well then, shut the hell up and stay in your seats. This is a hijack, not a party." He paused, a sudden look of contemplation on his face.

"Well, maybe it aint for you."

The sobs quieted into whimpers and then silence returned, heavier than ever.

A woman, the only woman in the group of cultist-turned-hijackers, stood in front of the terrified mass. "Don't be scared." She whispered, soothingly petting a whimpering child, who sat covered in his dad's blood. "Every one of you, minus the extra, are going to be the part of something bigger than all of us."

Her voice rang with conviction, absolutely strong in its beliefs. "You are going to be the exchange to the portal. Unless you make us mad, we won't hurt you." She scoffed at the word 'Hurt' as if she couldn't believe that what they would do would hurt anyone. "P-Please, let us go! My child's barley five!" A sobbing mother breathed out, her eyes pleading, and hands clutching a small, sleeping child.

The woman froze, looking at the child. "A… a child?" she repeated, looking right at the sleeping body. "Okay." She said lowly, as the woman broke down in relief.

In the next ten minutes, every child on the plane was sleeping soundly, never to wake up again as their families were held down by gun point. "Well," said a man, looking at the corpses, "At least we aren't giving up undeveloped souls." He shrugged, as a family sobbed louder, eyes cold and uncaring, as they rounded everyone in a line.

"Oi! This is it! Were at middle of the triangle." There was a sudden influx of movement on board, as a man jumped on to the nearest hijacker, several others joining him, a shriek rang in the air, as the airplane tumbled downwards, nearing a stormy ocean. A dark-skinned woman, who was attempting to snatch a parachute – the only parachute which was carried by the hijackers themselves as commercial airplanes _didn't_ have one, was jumped at.

"Give it to me!" The bat shit crazy cultist woman snapped, as the bloody token dug into their skin, "NO!" the woman screamed, sprinting to the rear exist and diving out of it, barely fifty feet away from the water, the only one to escape the plane as it fell. A single, bloody token, stayed with her - tangled with the bag straps, as the bleeding cut on her arm coated the already bloody token fully.

A body and a plane hit the Bermuda triangle, never to be seen again, as a massive wave swallowed them and a bright light shining through the murky waters.

A pentagram.

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A body floated near the banks of a sea. Massive foliage and trees covered the nearby lands, as a dark shadow casted upon the waters. The water was gentle and soothing, in contrast to the glaring sun on top. The area while surrounded with forests, was sandy and dry. The temperature was high, and the woodland critters peered around the trees into the water, looking at the said body.

A strangled gasp of breath, left the body – barely audible, as light brown eyes fluttered open. The woman, after realizing where she was, bobbed near the shores, crawling in to lands and collapsed into a heap nearby. The critters ran into the foliage, unimpressed by the wiggling sack of skin and meat. Fishes, which had surrounded the body in the water were now nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, the woman got up and snapped into movement, frantically digging into slopping pockets, as she removed a soaking wet phone. "No, come on!" She whispered to herself, as the phone wouldn't start. A dusty gale blew in the air, water nipping at her feet. She looked around her, and stood still for a long time, then checked herself, looking for what she still had on her body.

There was a rather large Swiss knife, a lighter, her mobile, some gold coins and a single pack of cigarettes which were now of no use. She didn't have her bag, or purse.

A small, hysterical sob left her, slinking onto the ground and sobs tearing through the soaking wet frame. She got up after several moments, visibly composing herself, taking deep breaths as she made her way into the trees. The loose sand turned into dry land as she continued ahead, far enough to be not be directly in sight – as one doesn't simply wake up in another terrain for no reason _and_ it was getting late.

She doubted the crazy lady and her gang of cultists turned hijackers were still around, but refused to take any chances with her luck – which had been rather shitty lately. There was an oncoming hysteria of waking up in another different place all together, unless she somehow had been knocked out for a while and managed to float to the nearest land.

It was unlikely, but later she would praise herself for coming up with a partly logical theory – instead of a crazy one.

However, she was also close enough to not lose sight of the water, somewhere about 15 meters away from the shore itself, as she trudged along the dry path. After a good amount of time – somewhere around two hours later, as night began to dawn, the woman stopped and poked around nearby area. She was never subjected to anything like this before, but thought herself a rather logical person and was pretty sure she'd survive.

Water was a dire problem, however. She was lucky enough to find some coconut trees by God's grace, from which she had managed to gather coconuts, which she drank from. After about half an hour, she gathered small twigs, which a fire was lit from and ate sour, round berries she had observed some critters eat, along with a very tiny, almost sardine like fish. It had to be gutted, which she didn't knew how – managing to hack of more mass than shite.

Normally, she would only eat frozen store bought fishes on some rare occasions but the situation called for it. She had tied and splinted her Swiss knife on a sturdy branch, and used healthy green plant stems to bind it. She removed her shoes, rolled up her pants, tied them on a branch and dived into the water. The little fishes which had so eagerly surrounded her were nowhere to be seen.

In the end, a lone skinny fish which had been smacked and grabbed was all she had. It was about as big as her palm and tasted… fishy. She wasn't sure if she had undercooked it or if fish were supposed to be like that when not old, full of preservatives and recently un-frozen.

She was smart enough to burn the remains, as she climbed atop a particularly large tree – which had a natural burrow between its large branches. She huddle between them, tightened the large, now dried, cotton jacket around her, the cargo pants keeping her legs warm, and her smelly boots and socks were tied to her jacket – feet bare but warm in the foliage.

While most of the people would sleep on the ground, most of the people also died in the wild. She, did _not_ want to be most of the people or have bugs in her ear/mouth or be jumped by crazy-cultists or be eaten by some unknown predator or snake. Snakes/insects/bugs could also be present in the trees, but crazy-cultists were less likely to jump her there. Unless they too were in the trees, but she ignored _that_ thought.

The night was warm – and dry. She woke up the next day feeling sore, tired and homesick.

She didn't have any of her fears come true, but a brightly feathered, nightingale like bird was looking at her funny when she woke up. Also, her back was crying and cracking with pain – not used to sleeping in… well, a tree. This went on for about a week – she marked the days on her belt. Her phone wasn't waking up, she had no ideas where she was, and finding water was getting difficult. She was always half tempted to drink the salt water, but sheer common sense stopped her.

Also, she figured out how to gut fishes. Or at least, that particular small fishy which she always had the fortune of catching.

Mosquitoes was also another problem – along with funny looking bugs and little insects which were attracted to the heat she gave off. A tiny spider had nestled inside the seam of her jacket – which roamed all over her shoulders too. She had squashed and flicked off many like these in the past seven days, but no avail, another one of its brethren always found the inside of her seams.

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On one of her many days in isolation on the land, she ventured deep inside the forest, amongst the center. She claimed trees to keep a track of her whereabouts, learning subtle hints of the direction she had been in, to not get lost. It was on a day like this, when curiosity won over chariness, that she happened upon a grove of fruit-bearing plants.

The only thing was, that the fruit's and the plants were _glowing_. And she didn't mean the healthy green glow of a particularly tasty veggie, she meant illuminating, light that shone through the plants, turning it a weird green-blue. She stared at the plant, which was round and large and glowing and slowly left for the shore.

The plant could be bio-luminescent or she might had just discovered a new plant species. She was kind of freaked out by the weird look of the plant, like a mix between a cactus and a papaya, but overall she'd rather not risk eating it. Also, she wasn't very in on the 'know your greens' thing, but sue her, at least she knew her _toxics_ from her _non-toxics_.

It was on the twelfth day, when she finally saw what she would later call 'Mutant'. A ghastly, deformed looking body – discolored, disproportionate and disgusting. However, they were nothing that couldn't happen to a human – what wasn't human, was the elongated snout, the black bulging veins, the smelly _black_ blood, the _red_ eyes and the _fangs_.

While on her lookout for something other than little fishes, she had stumbled upon a thicket, which smelled _horrible_. While a normal person would have ran away, a normal person wouldn't be in a stranded wherever she was. Also, if it was a she could salvage something, like a _phone_ or a _water bottle_. Unfortunately, it wasn't a dead cultist-not-a-hijacker-anymore.

Person.

...Human?

Anyway, She took one look at the creature (because there's no way that's a _human_) with the cultist's words ringing in her head, and emptied her stomach – whatever little food it had – mainly bile and undigested fish. Eyes pricked with tears, as she shakily sat on the ground, looking un-waveringly at the cooling corpse. It was old – dead flies around it said so, along with the dried blood tracks around it and the practically decayed body. It had to been at least two weeks (for her own sanity, not that its left, seeing as there was some dead _horror movie villain_ in front of her).

For a while, she sat there, head racing. Did the cultist _summon_ something? _Was_ it a something? _What_ killed it? How the hell is this her life!? and more, were some common question which had been asked to the common sense left within her.

After debating her sanity, she got up – shaky legged and chalky faced. Gingerly touching the body, she fought off a gag – searching for anything remotely useful to her. She collected a sack (of some kind of leather) with foreign gold coins, a rusty, blood stained knife, (which she cleaned with sea water taking care no blood was dropped in the water body and only on the corpse), few crude hooks, some sort of weird looking horn-trump which she was pretty sure was used in the medieval era.

The horn, the metal, the knife, the ...hooks? Were all _quite_ medieval. And what was up with that black blood? Maybe this was a failed science experiment organized illegally by someone. Maybe this was a hallucination which she was having by eating those funky berries. Maybe she was just going crazy and this was just a person with some kind of disease or mutilation.

But she was stranded and low on food. It had been days since she saw anyone and talked to anything. She hadn't had food properly and water was scarce. She always woke up with a pain in her back and spiders in her seams and she was just so _done_.

She was scared and she had almost _died_ and is in a situation which could possibly kill her. And now there was a chance that there was something even more threating and she was in a whole another world from what she was used to and it was suffocating, the hopelessness. Slowly an alarming realization came to her, which she refused to acknowledge. Shaking of the dirt on her pants, she adjusted her jacket, flicked of the spider in her seam and continued her journey to find civilization.

(If there even existed one, and wasn't that an alarming thought?)

Another week went by, it had been sixteen days (Half a month) when she broke down – the strong faced melting away, and heavy sobs and desperation bursting through her mentally fortified dams. Her phone was dead, she had no water, there wasn't enough food and the dead squirrel's eyes haunted her from her last dinner. The berries made her head swim with pain now _and god fucking dammit, she wanted to go home!_

Hard earth (Was it Earth?) dug into her forehead as gaunt cheekbones and teary eyes looked at the soil. She crouched low and screamed and screamed till her jaw hurt and voice broke. No one was near her, she wanted someone near her, but there were people here that could kill her and things that could kill her and she was just so damned _scared_.

Curling up into a ball, she let the cluster of spider surround her – they wouldn't bite her, spider rarely bit humans, and let her emotions cloud over, as the spider roamed over her, and cluttered over her heart, inside her seams. She woke up the next day – covered in spiders which were suspiciously warm, shaking them off her, and mentally exhausted.

Removing a stray from her curly short hair, she tied her clothes to each other on a nearby wood, above from ground, and submerged herself in the cool waters. After scrubbing herself raw, and catching a small sardine-thing which she ate, she sheared of her long bob, now barely long enough tie up

That night she stayed by the water and looked, in disbelief as a large, round_ something_ that was fucking _glowing_ swan around the water, eating thousands of tiny illuminated fishes. It was nothing like she had seen before and she felt for a moment, like she was in the set of '_The life of Pi' _and that her (was it? Was it _hers_) whole world shifted. She ignored her thoughts and continued her journey to somewhere, refusing to sleep that night.

(Because she knew it deep in her head, that she was not going home, and this is foreign world she walks in – if the mysterious creature that light up the dark sea in the night, shaped vaguely as a giant motorboat, the mutant and the funny looking _glowing fruit_ was any indicator.) She didn't think about the clutter of spiders attracted to her, or the still dead phone or the glowing thing in the waters.

She found something on the twentieth day – the trees had thinned, and there, tangled in the rocks near the shore lay the green duffle bag of a parachute. Sweet, sweet hope coursed through her and she ran to the bag – which was empty, but it was a _bag_ with straps and a _thin rope_ and it was the most glorious thing she ever saw. She dried it, as she walked, then putting her coconut shell which she used to collect and boil water in, her left over stash of berries and nuts she deemed safe to eat along with her jacket.

However, she was also a bit disturbed. Okay no, she was _disturbed_-disturbed by finding the duffle bag. She didn't really remember that night, (Neither did she want to) but she was sure that the parachute didn't open. Well, it did open and everything but it had been… snapped? She wasn't clear, but she did know that there was a moment where she wasn't falling and then she had been falling.

But the question was, _where_ exactly was the parachute?

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Her stained black shirt, lay stark against her darkened deep brown skin – which went from a nice olive tan to a deep, dark brown. At night, she lay, crouched amongst critters, spiders and leaves in a tree, looking at the _damned token_. She wanted to hurl it, snap it, _burn it_, but it might be an important…. Part of her way to home (Which she would find, eventually.)

The token was a funny looking thing, with a circle stamp and that's it. It was metal and had a circle engraved in it, which disturbingly reminded her of '_The ring'_, but if she was going to die in a seven days by the hands of a malnutritioned ghost-child, she'd put a hell of a fight. Living in the wilderness had somewhat made her more primitive, more animal-like. She rarely flinched these days, when she killed her food.

Which was a thought she didn't know how to feel about.

The trees turned into tall grassland, with trampled paths and little vegetation and almost no water. There were no trees to sleep on the nights, and she had been forced to huddle into a ball between the grasses, vulnerable and often drifting into a dreamless sleep looking at the entirely _different _solar system. The night sky, which used to be once her favorite views quickly soured.

The ringing doubt rang louder, and she had to muffle the sound of her own brain, lips murmuring in a frantic song trying to drown something within.

She continued on, delirious and hazy brained, at the peak of giving up – it had been two days and she had marched onto her deathbed, head too fuzzy to know her limit and stop, wills too broken to care about what happened to her – eaten by predators or by preys – because she was neither and pitiful enough to be thrown over by a doe. The isolation had taken its toll and now she sang songs in her head, screamed in her head, talked to the spider and crushed them when they didn't respond.

She hadn't drunk any water, whatsoever in the last two days, as the coconut shell had cracked, and her brain hurt, along with her forehead, her back, her legs and _everything hurt_ too much to put it in words. It felt she was cracking and she wouldn't be surprised if she dropped dead in the next hour – literally. Also, she really could feel the madness creeping onto her, she was a social person, and this was her _living _nightmare.

(She needed someone, anyone to talk to her.)

Desperation had her drinking saltwater, which made her gag on her breath, the slimy coarse texture burning her raw, but it had felt nice for a moment - before she had to spit it out, that is. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lips cracked and she stunk like a rotten fish, and boy, _did _she know that smell well. She had a sort of carelessness and daring lit to her – the way a person with little time often are.

Then she dropped in front of the shores, and stuck her head in the water, eyes burning because of the salt and then came up gasping for breath. The fishes swarmed her, now. As if they knew that she wasn't going to eat them.

She stumbled, staggered, rose and then tripped again – a vicious cycle leaving her dirty pants even filthier and rocks dug into her knees along with stinging palms. As the grass thickened, came along some sparse thicket of trees – beautiful in appearance, they stood there in the distant horizon, along with a… human. She stopped and squinted at the scenery in front of her eyes.

It could have been so much more than what it appeared to be – a mutant, a mirage or a trick of eyes, but after a month of solidity, even a donkey seems lovable company. She ran, a full on sprint – hollering and screeching at the top of her voice. Her pleas were more of a weak bray than a roar, but it got attention. The figure, which was actually a human, which was enough and too much for her.

She sagged into the arms of a concerned woman, who was quickly surrounded by other people, all firing off questions at her, which she couldn't understand. Literally (There's a pun in literally by the underlining meaning _Literate_). She didn't care, obviously, for she was half-delirious and too overwhelmed, all she could manage to gasp out before fainting in the arms of the woman was a feeble mess.

_"…__..I'm Sawyer Johnson, 'n I just wanna go home." _

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So yeah, thoughts?


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